The present invention relates to engineering problem solving and design tools and more particularly to computer based systems for aiding engineers, scientists and the like to have a greater understanding of the products, processes, or machines they wish to improve and the technical problems related thereto that they wish to solve.
Great advancements have been made in the fields commonly known as computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided engineering (CAE). These computer based systems enable the designer to create detailed images and print-outs of the product or machine he/she is designing or improving. With CAD, the designer can try many new designs or modifications of subsystems and components quickly and view the modified products immediately on the monitor or print-out. The CAD system also generates virtual 3-D images of the product or machine, enables in-space rotation of the product image and zoom through the product image interior.
Although CAD systems are a great designer tool for trying design changes quickly, they do not otherwise aid the designer in the evaluation and solving of technical engineering problems or conceiving new products or processes that provide new functional performance or the same functional performance with completely different engineering approaches. Accordingly, there has arisen a relatively new area of computer based engineering tools known as concept engineering computer based systems. These systems serve to increase the designers inventive and creative abilities in solving engineering and scientific operational or functional problems and, in the course of such problem solving, induce the designer to invent new structural and functional concepts applicable to his/her design goals.
One such concept engineering computer based system is the Invention Machine.TM. LAB.TM. Software sold by Invention Machine Corporation of Cambridge, Mass., that comprises a knowledge and logic based system that generates concepts and recommendations for solving engineering problems at the conceptual level. Various inventive rules or procedures are included and certain ones selected and presented to the user to consider in solving the user's current session problem. This system applies to all fields of physics and aids the engineer by solving engineering contradictions to reduce the tendency of user applied engineering trade-offs. In addition, this system includes a large data base of physical, geometric, and chemical effects used in the past to solve other engineering problems and selected ones of the effects are presented to the user to consider for a solution to his/her current problem session. Lastly, this system includes a technology evolution and prediction capability that aids the user in understanding the dynamics of his/her product evolution and the logical next or future generation of the product or its function. This stimulates the user to think forward and extrapolate the dynamics of the technology life cycle and originate the next generation of technology.
Although the above conceptual engineering system has experienced much acceptance by the technical community, there is still a need for a computer based system that aids the user in understanding the nature and value aspects of the current product, machine, or process the engineer wishes to design or re-design. In addition, there is a need for the user to be aided in formulating the statement of the most important technical problems for elimination of components or harmful actions between components of the object system being analyzed.